


Broken Vows Form Mended Hearts

by MidnightJen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, Divorce, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Infidelity, M/M, Pregnant Ginny Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25193308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightJen/pseuds/MidnightJen
Summary: When Harry said, 'I've met someone.'And Ginny said, 'I'm pregnant.'Harry followed it up with, 'I want a divorce.'Because he's that much of an arsehole.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 26
Kudos: 260





	Broken Vows Form Mended Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, this is unbeta'd and I'm fairly sure the tenses ran away from me.

He’s not sure what makes today the day, whether it’s the weather or his mood or that his tea was just that touch better than normal, but when he steps into the floo in the Ministry Atrium he knows that tonight he’s going to tell Ginny. It’ll hurt; he knows that. Knows she’ll be angry too but now, finally, in a way he never thought he could be, he’s prepared for that hurt.

She’s sat at the kitchen table, eyes distant as she looks out the window, ignoring the mug of tea on the table in front of her. His newfound confidence doesn’t falter when he sits down across from her. Maybe he’s a cowered for not waiting until she looks at him, but he needs to say this now, needs to say the words he’s been avoiding for so damn long.

‘I’ve met someone,’ he tells her. It feels good to say the words out loud, feels freeing just letting them exist in his own kitchen.

He didn’t have any expectations for how she’d react – anger probably – and she is angry, he can see that but her first response is to laugh. He only sees the anger, reads the bitterness in her eyes when she turns to look at him and says, ‘I’m pregnant.’

The news should change things, it should have him scrambling to retract his words and offer a bullshit explanation, turn it into a funny story about work because he’s Harry Potter and he has always done what’s right. Isn’t that why he married Ginny in the first place? Because he wanted to be with her and the war was over, Voldemort gone, and that was just what was meant to happen. Harry Potter was meant to marry Ginny Weasley.

But it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t. He has never loved anyone as completely, passionately, maddeningly, as he does Draco, and if he lied right then in the face of Ginny’s news then he’d only be condemning three – no four, there was a baby now – people to a life of misery and regret.

‘I want a divorce,’ Harry says, instead of the platitudes and retraction he should say. That people would expect him to say.

Ginny laughs again, this time it’s all bitterness. ‘Merlin, you’re an arsehole.’

He nods, because that’s fair, he is. She’s just told him what should be fantastic, exciting news, and he’s choosing to ignore it because he can’t deal with that right now. He needs her to understand he’s serious, that what he’s saying isn’t just tossed out on a whim because work is hard or because the _Daily Prophet_ made another comment.

God, he can’t even remember the last time he and Ginny had sex, how could there be a baby?

The sudden shift in his thoughts puts things a little better in perspective and he realises that, yeah, he’s being an arsehole, but he needs to say this and he needs her to understand that just because there’s a baby between them doesn’t mean that their problems are fixed.

Draco isn’t a problem to be fixed.

‘Okay,’ Harry says, taking a deep breath. ‘I get it, I’m sorry.’

Ginny snorts. ‘You don’t understand anything!’

Harry shrugs. ‘You’re right, I don’t. I don’t know how this happened.’

He winces as soon as he says the words, but Ginny takes great pleasure in snarling, ‘We got very drunk at George’s birthday party and had sex in the bath.’

And, oh, Harry remembers that now, remembers how upset Ginny had been remembering Fred, how he’d been thinking about being anywhere but the party and how when they’d been tangled together in the tub, Ginny riding him, he’d only been able to think about Draco. About how differently he’d have been handling the day if only he’d been able to see Draco. His drink addled mind had been drowning in the guilt of being half the reason Fred was dead and Ginny was a mess and all he’d wanted was to walk away, to wrap himself around Draco and hide from the world.

He hadn’t even been thinking about sex, that had been all Ginny, he’d just wanted somewhere warm and safe to ride out the day. But he hadn’t been able to get away and he’d felt guilty enough about Fred without adding Ginny to it and so he’d followed her upstairs to the tub and they’d had sex while everyone downstairs steadily got drunker.

It had been the first time they’d had sex in months, the last time in – he wracks his brains – another two. Sex has become such a distant part of his relationship with Ginny and at first, before Draco (was that a thing? Harry wasn’t sure there was a before, Draco was just – he was the biggest a part of Harry’s life and had been for so long) it had been because she was away for work and if she wasn’t then he was – pulling surveillance duty or the overnight shift. They’d both become ships passing in the night, surviving on notes and half-asleep murmurings and empty assurances that things would settle again, and they’d find the time.

They’d never found the time and Harry has stopped wanting to. He hasn’t stopped to think maybe Ginny was still waiting.

He’s been pulling away. He thought she had too. He’s started planning a whole other life, one that features Draco and warm Sunday mornings in the bedroom they’d share in Draco’s cottage. Merlin, when he told Draco about seeing a lawyer, about drawing up the divorce papers, they’d started talking about the family they’d have some day, about their options and what they’d like to do.

They’d talked marriage and kids and about how Harry could finally have pets because there’d be someone home to feed them if work kept him late and it had all been so perfect. He wants that life with Draco, the one they’ve imagined lying in Draco’s big bed in the cottage with the big window that overlooks the garden that is just the tip of a massive parcel of land that has room for children playing and friendly Quidditch matches. Where the woods overflow with magic and they can have the kind of family and the kind of life they had both been denied growing up.

Harry wants that life. He doesn’t want a life of constantly passing Ginny by and a schedule that means they’ll raise their kids in a house without the kind of love they deserve.

He takes a deep breath, makes sure he’s looking her in the eye and says, ‘This marriage doesn’t work, Ginny, you’ve got to know that. I’m not happy. Can you honestly tell me you are?’

‘Happy?’ This time her laugh is broken, choked with tears. ‘I can’t play Quidditch if I’m pregnant!’

‘Oh.’

His little sound isn’t enough for her and she slams her fist on the table. ‘Oh? Fuck you Harry! I thought this was what you wanted. I thought, fuck, my Quidditch career is over but at least this’ll make Harry happy and you just – fuck you. How dare you fucking sit there and tell me you want a divorce!’

They’re silent, its uncomfortable and Harry has to resist the urge to fidget but he has no idea what he’s supposed to say. It’s true, he’s always wanted to be a father but now when he thinks about being a father there’s no Ginny in the picture. He and Draco haven’t talked specifics but there’s always been that underlying feeling in their exchanges that they’ll find a surrogate, do it that way. Harry would have been fine with adoption once upon a time but now he wants that feeling of his blood surviving, loathe though he is to give Lucius Malfoy the satisfaction, but Narcissa, her eyes would light up and he knows how much the idea would mean to her.

But thinking about surrogacy and adoption offers up an idea and he blurts it out before he can stop himself. At least his words are soft, ‘Have you thought about getting an abortion?’

Really, he should have been expecting the tea. Ginny’s rage as she picked up her cooling mug and tossed the tepid drink all over him is hardly undeserved so he doesn’t say anything just calmly brushes what he can off his face.

Her anger doesn’t last long, though, before she breaks down and starts to cry and he has no idea if he can, if he should, but he can’t stand to see her cry and so he gets up and wraps his arms around her. She fights him at first but its half-hearted and soon she’s openly sobbing onto his chest. He ignores the ache in his knees from the cold tiled floor and just holds her, knowing how much of this mess is his own making and knowing that he needs to ride this out with her.

Eventually, when she calms down, she shoves him away. It’s not gentle and he staggers back and lands on his ass, but she doesn’t apologise, and he isn’t looking for it. He’d let her do a lot worse right now.

‘I’m not ready to have this baby, Harry,’ she tells him, and she won’t meet his eyes, her words soft. ‘I can’t get rid of it either.’

Harry climbs to his feet circles back around the table and reclaims his seat. He studies her for a long moment and his thoughts guiltily circle back to the fact that he is ready. He’d happily have a baby right now. But not with her.

Not with Ginny.

But they’d need a surrogate.

And it is an awful thought, a horrible one, but it doesn’t feel horrible. It feels like maybe it’s an answer, one they don’t necessarily have to discuss now but, also, they really do.

And, fuck, he’s about to be even more of an asshole, he thinks, but he needs to do this, and he needs to say this, and this isn’t at all what he planned when he came through the floo. It isn’t at all how he thought this conversation would go and he needs to talk to Draco about it, can’t go making life changing plans without including the man that is his life, but it could work.

But he’s not sure how to start the conversation. He’s not sure how to have all of this out there in one go, words that could make or break his future in ways more complicated than his (not so simple) request for a divorce.

He runs a hand through his hair and its shaking, but he looks at her and he knows they need to have it now, that life altering conversation. They need to clear the air.

‘There are things you need to know, things I think we need to talk about,’ he begins. ‘I need to say this, and I hope you understand why when I’m done – but Gin, I need you to hear me out and then I promise I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me.’

She looks like she’s going to snap again but something about his calm tone helps her keep a lid on her anger and she nods.

‘Things between us have been different for a long time,’ he starts. ‘We’re never home together and at first I hated it, I hated that I never got to see you, but I was – I am – so happy for you, you get to fly Ginny and you deserve that.’ She makes a strangled sound at that and he winces. ‘I know, I’m sorry, but I have a point and I need to make it. You weren’t pulling away, neither was I, but it was lonely, you have to see that. I started visiting Ron and Hermione more, started seeing all of my friends more and then one day, I uh, I was supposed to be having lunch with Luna but she – well she’s Luna, she got distracted hunting down some creature and forgot all about lunch and I’m not even sure how it happened but,’ he pauses because this next bit is probably going to be the hardest bit to explain, ‘when she didn’t show I ended up bumping into Draco.’

‘ _Draco Malfoy_?’

Harry nods. ‘It went about as well as you can expect, he said something, I said something, pretty sure the only reason it didn’t come to blows was that we were in a muggle area.’

Ginny snorts at this but she’s mad enough that she glares when Harry’s own lips twitch in a smile.

‘God it was ridiculous. I think we argued for about two hours straight and we just sort of kept arguing and then he had somewhere to be and we were still arguing even as we walked and it just sort of snowballed out of control and I honestly thought once we finally had enough that we’d never see each other again only I needed an expert on potions for one of my cases and he was the first person to come to mind and it feels like I walked into his office one day and I just – fuck I’m sorry – but I just never left.’

Ginny looks at him blankly for a moment and he waits for her mind to catch up with his words because it’s not like she’d be expecting it. Harry has never once expressed an interest in men. He’s never once expressed an interest in anyone other than Ginny, at least not as far as she’s aware.

These days, he can’t help wondering if, maybe if he’d been just a bit more self-aware and a lost less thick, he might have realised that he’d been properly attracted to exactly two people in his life and how actually realising he thought the Slytherin git was fit might have changed things.

‘I’m sorry, what the fuck are you saying?’

‘I’ve been having an affair with Draco.’ It’s easier just to say it, lay it out there and wait for her to explode.

‘What?’

Then again, maybe it’s not. Maybe she’s going to require a little bit more because she’s looking at him like he’s lost his damn mind and also like she has no fucking idea why she should even be listening to him.

‘Ginny,’ he says her name on a sigh, warily and with enough awareness to know that his words are going to be painful (for her) but he needs to say them. ‘I’m in love with Draco.’

‘You’re joking, right? This is some sort of sick joke because what the actual fuck Harry?’

In spite of, or maybe even because of, Ginny’s rage, Harry is calm. He’s getting these thoughts and feelings off his chest. ‘It’s not a joke, Ginny. I didn’t plan for things to happen like this, I honestly thought we’d find a way through this but things with Draco, Ginny they’re good and they could be so much better. I thought I loved you when we got married, I thought I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, but now, when I think about the future, when I think about what I want it’s not you, it’s Draco and I think I’m finally starting to understand that maybe it’s always been this way.

‘We were so young, Ginny, we got swept up in this fantasy of what life should be, but that’s not life Gin, it’s not the one I want or deserve and it’s not the one you deserve either. Can you honestly look back over the last couple of years and tell me you’re happy? That it’s all exactly what you wanted?’

Again, his words are harsh but they’re not untrue and he sees it, sees the way the anger in her eyes fades – just a little. Its’s still there and it’s going to be for a while, he knows that, but he thinks he sees a little hint of understanding, thinks that maybe, when she’d been sitting alone at the table thinking about a baby she wasn’t ready for, that there was a different path she saw for her life and it wasn’t staying at home and being the perfect little wife to Harry Potter.

‘Fuck,’ she mutters, dropping her head into her hands. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!’

Harry rides out her words, lets them wash over him, and knows that by the fourth expletive she’s calmed down a little.

‘How did we let it go so wrong?’ she murmurs, and her voice is stronger now. She’s still boiling mad, Harry’s not stupid enough not to see that, but she’s calmed down enough, is thinking about what he’s said in a way that says maybe, just maybe, she’s been having some of these thoughts too but just hasn’t the push needed to properly examine the thoughts.

‘I think, after the war, we needed each other, and we let that need turn into something it was never supposed to be.’

She nods slowly. ‘I stay at Jez’s some nights after practice so I don’t have to come home.’ The admission costs her, he can see that but in getting the words out, there’s an admission too and suddenly Ginny laughs because admitting to crashing at her teammate’s place after practice just so she doesn’t have to come home is a step toward admitting that she sees something wrong too.

‘I haven’t slept here in two weeks,’ Harry admits. ‘I only came home tonight to break things off with you.’

Ginny glares at him. ‘You cheated on me, you lying bastard!’

Harry winces but Ginny’s glare wilts almost immediately.

‘Have you just been secretly gay this whole time?’ she asks.

Harry shakes his head and it feels like a turning point in the conversation. ‘I’m bi. I think. I don’t know. Ginny you know what I’m like when it comes to Draco. He just sort of consumes me, he’s an obsession.’

Ginny crinkles her nose. ‘That’s not healthy,’ she observes.

Harry snorts a laugh. ‘Oh my god, Gin, nothing about me and Draco is probably healthy.’

Ginny laughs and it might not reach her eyes, not yet, but it is a real laugh. ‘I’m so mad at you.’

‘I know, I’m mad at me too.’

‘I don’t think I love you.’ Her words are a relief, he can see it in the way her shoulders relax, in the way she sinks more comfortably into her chair. It’s an admission, something she’s acknowledging now because she can. ‘Not, I mean, I do love you Harry but not – not like I should.’

‘I know,’ he says, and he does. ‘I love you too.’

‘I think I need to hate you for a bit, too.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she snaps. ‘Don’t be so good about it. I’m allowed to hate you! You cheated on me! You fell in love with another fucking man – Draco Malfoy of all people! – and still managed to get me pregnant.’

They sober at that.

‘I’m pregnant, Harry,’ Ginny whispers and for the first time since he stepped through the floo he realises Ginny is scared. She’s twenty-four years old. She’s at the top of her Quidditch game, in the midst of a truly spectacular career, being pregnant, being a mum could ruin that.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not ready to be a mum.’ She starts crying again but this time Harry doesn’t go to comfort her, he knows this time he isn’t welcome. ‘Merlin, does that make me a horrible person?’

‘Of course not,’ he says automatically.

‘How can I even have this baby if I don’t want it?’

He waits a beat, debates whether or not to say it and then thinks that so far this has been a night for brutal honesty so why not just say it? ‘I want it.’

She stares at him incomprehensively.

He clears his throat. ‘I uh – Draco and I have talked about it. I think – I mean, I’d have to talk to him but we, we’d take the baby.’

The empty mug bounces off his head and for a moment he’s seeing stars.

‘Ow!’

‘Fuck sorry,’ Ginny says and despite the fact that she just threw a mug at his head she does actually sound sorry. ‘It was a reflex.’

He snorts. He can’t help it. Rubbing his head where he knows there’s going to be a nice big bruise, he glares at her. ‘I probably deserved that.’

‘You’re damn right, you did! Bloody hell, you’ve talked about kids with Malfoy?!’

‘I’ve talked about everything with Draco,’ Harry says with a pained wince. He’s aware that the last time he and Ginny spoke about having children was back before they’d even gotten married whereas he and Draco had talked about it the other night after Harry had spent the day with Teddy.

‘Are you fucking serious right now?’

‘About which part?’ Harry has to know although he could honestly say that he’s been serious about everything tonight he thinks a little clarification for Ginny’s sake is a good idea.

‘That you want this baby,’ she says. ‘That you’ll take it and raise it with Malfoy.’

Slowly, Harry nods. Softly he says, ‘You said you don’t want to raise a child right now, Ginny. You said you can’t just get rid of it. Draco and I want children, we’re going to need help.’

‘Floo him.’

‘What?’ Harry sputters.

‘Floo him,’ she says again, slowly, carefully, enunciating each word as though he was an idiot for not understanding the first time. ‘Let’s talk about this.’

‘Fuck, Ginny, it doesn’t have to be now!’

‘Yes, it does!’ she cries, and the part of him that has a death wish very nearly questions if her sudden tears and swing in mood is because of hormones. ‘I can’t – I need this to be now, Harry, I need to…I need to have a plan. I need to be able to – I don’t know, I just need to know. Floo him.’

Harry doesn’t exactly want to comply, but he can’t see how not to. He stands slowly, walks at a snail’s pace across the room to the floo and can’t help but glance back over his shoulder at her before her glare has him tossing the powder in, calling out Draco’s address and sticking his head in the flames.

For a moment he just looks at Draco. Draco, who is curled up on the couch, deeply immersed in a file making notes. Draco who looks up with a smile when he hears the floo.

‘Hey,’ he grins and then frowns like he’s read something in Harry’s expression. ‘Did it not go well?’

‘There’s been a complication.’

‘A complication,’ Draco repeats slowly. Tiredly. ‘You’re not going through with it.’

‘That’s not the complication,’ Harry assures him before he says, ‘You need to come over.’

Draco’s eyes widen and he immediately denies the request. ‘Are you insane? She’ll kill me.’

Harry doesn’t roll his eyes because up until about an hour ago he’d honestly thought that was a possibility. ‘No, she really won’t. The three of us have a lot to talk about.’

Draco must read something in his expression because he sets aside the file and stands up. ‘Alright, I’m coming through.’

Harry hastily pulls his head out of the floo and steps back. Draco steps through a moment later, any of his hesitation and worry hidden behind the mask he always pulls on to protect himself.

Ginny stares at him and Draco stares back. Apparently her idea of breaking the stalemate is to bluntly drop it all on Draco for him to deal with. ‘I’m pregnant. I’m not ready for a baby. Harry is. Where do you stand?’

Draco freezes, his eyes flicking in alarm between Harry and Ginny.

His hesitation seems to annoy Ginny because she snaps. ‘I need an answer. You’ve stolen my husband; do you want my baby too?’

‘Ginny,’ Harry snaps.

‘Shut up, Harry,’ she says, ‘I’m talking to your boyfriend.’

Draco hesitates and Harry can see it, so he says what he knows needs to be said. ‘You can be honest.’

Draco lets his mask fall and Harry only knows Ginny sees it because he hears her sucked in gasp of surprise as Draco’s whole face softens, his expression becomes warm if not a little cautious. He hopes Ginny sees that hope is buried beneath the caution, he certainly can.

‘Uh – yes. Yes, I’ll – Harry and I – we’ll take the baby,’ Draco manages to say.

Ginny drops down into her chair again and Harry can’t read her expression because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look like that before. She’s searching Draco’s face for something and Harry doesn’t know what because he really can’t read the expression he sees there.

‘I don’t want to look up at you,’ she snaps, pointing her finger sharply at the other side of the table.

Harry automatically moves to reclaim his chair and Draco reluctantly sinks into the one beside it. No one speaks and it is so unbearably awkward that Harry catches Draco twitch out of the corner of his eye, something he knows the man would never normally do. Draco managed not to twitch or betray his feelings even once during his trial before the Wizengamot. Ginny should probably be proud that she can make him.

Not that Harry will tell her that, she doesn’t need more power over the two of them, she currently wields enough. Whether this was how he saw the night going or not, Ginny is literally cradling their future inside her right now and it is honestly terrifying.

Twitch or not, Draco isn’t about to break the silence and Harry feels like maybe he needs to wait for Ginny on this one. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait long.

‘I need to hate you both for a little while,’ she tells them, reiterates her point from earlier really.

Harry’s response is still the same, ‘You should.’

Draco shrugs. ‘You never stopped hating me.’

Ginny glares but Draco has a point and so her glare doesn’t have much power. She knows it too. The peculiar expression is back on her face a moment later and Harry thinks maybe he’s about to get his first experience with morning sickness (he’s not an idiot, he knows it’s not strictly for the morning) because her face turns a little green.

Of course, then she speaks, and it’s so far from what Harry was expecting but it certainly explains the green tinge she’s taken on. ‘Sweet fucking Merlin, were you in love with him in sixth fucking year?!’

Both Harry and Draco wince at this because, honestly, Harry doesn’t know the answer to that. He’s pretty sure the obsession he had back then could never be called love but he’s also pretty sure his obsession wasn’t solely driven by his need to prove that Draco was a Death Eater.

He’s older and wiser and not so much of an oblivious idiot these days and he can admit – only to himself and Draco – that maybe all that obsessive stalking and the need to prove he was right about Draco was a lot more complicated and maybe did involve an element of attraction.

But that is something a mind healer can play with one day, it’s not something he’s about to work through in Ginny’s kitchen.

‘No,’ Harry answers but he’s aware it lacks conviction.

Ginny slumps in her chair, throws her head back to glare at the ceiling but he doesn’t think she’s actually seeing it. ‘I never really hated you until then,’ she murmurs, her words obviously meant for Draco. ‘You were always a git but you’d never really done anything to me personally – aside from the occasional insult – until you took all of Harry’s attention when we were finally dating.’

Draco makes a sound as though he wants to speak but doesn’t actually know what he’s supposed to say in response. Ginny tips her head forward and looks at him expectantly.

The look seems to light a spark in Draco because caution is suddenly gone and in a blink he is the confident man he’s come to be. Not the arrogant git who strolled around Hogwarts as though he owned the place, not that one Ginny is familiar with, but the softer self-assured man Harry has gotten to know and love these last two years.

‘It’s hardly my fault Harry is an idiot who couldn’t figure out he wanted to shag me and save me,’ Draco casually replied.

And Harry should probably be offended but, well, Draco has likely just managed to summarise exactly what he’d subconsciously been doing in sixth year and that wasn’t something he could dispute.

It’s probably why Ginny, in spite of her anger, laughs properly for the first time all night. He thinks things are looking up until the laughter turns to tears and then great big sobs and he has to exchange an alarmed look with Draco because neither of them is quite sure what to do.

But Ginny is Ginny and she’s not about to become the damsel in distress (not again at least) and so she rides out her emotional outburst, sucks it back in and says, ‘I’ll sign the divorce papers. Give you the baby but fuck you both. Get out of my house.’

Draco doesn’t hesitate to rise from the chair, but he does pause at the fireplace and the look he gives Ginny is one Harry is sure he has only ever seen. It’s gentle and filled with awe and his words are so soft and almost reverent when he says, ‘Thank you.’

Ginny’s glare falters in the face of such unexpected softness but its back in full force when she turns to Harry and says sharply, ‘You can tell mum and dad.’

And Harry is forced to realise that perhaps Ginny is angrier than he’s realised, if that is even possible.


End file.
